


To the Road Ahead

by aphelion_orion



Category: Star Ocean: The Second Story | Second Evolution
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:18:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphelion_orion/pseuds/aphelion_orion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dias doesn't ask, and Claude makes a decision. -ending ficlet-</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Road Ahead

He never asked.

The thought occurs to him quite suddenly, just something that isn't there one moment and is there the next, with no one and nothing in particular to blame for its existence. And it sits there, patiently, waiting to be turned over and examined, prodded for its implications, while he is watching Claude struggle into the breeches—still stiff and smelling distinctly of tailor shop—loose linen swishing around his hips, waiting to be tucked in.

He never asked.

He doesn't know why he didn't, because it certainly made him wonder at the time. There were many things Claude could have chosen; if not the idyll of a tiny village, then another place and another friend.

It wasn't like he would have had trouble finding something to do, as an honest face and clever hands certainly didn't go unappreciated. Paired with the boy's uncanny knack for observing people, he could have apprenticed in almost anything, so it certainly wasn't a lack of hospitality or options that drove him to rise along with Dias the morning after the victory celebration, as if there had been something—an agreement, a decision, some kind of talk about possibilities and futures.

It surprised him at the time that Claude would leave without proper goodbyes, as he certainly didn't seem to share Dias' lack of tolerance towards tearful departures and displays of affection.

But he didn't ask. He didn't ask even as he heard the off-beat echo to his own footsteps tapping along the cobblestone, the early morning fog wafting through the streets of Lacour, with nothing but the nod of a tired guardsman to note their passage.

"Just until the next town," Claude had said some five hours later, smiling to himself as he cut an apple in two, that odd twist of his mouth that was neither fake nor genuine, because it didn't mean anything in particular.

He removed a spot in its side and handed one half to Dias, glancing at him from under his bangs, almost expecting to be made to answer what he couldn't—what Dias realized he couldn't, because he was suddenly thinking of the old stories of castaways washed up on some foreign shore, left to stumble through a world they couldn't understand, with no way to return.

Perhaps that was why he nodded and said nothing further, why he just bit into his half and absolved Claude of fumbling his way through an explanation that didn't exist. In that moment, it was strange to watch that smile tilt, slipping into something heartfelt that hovered over the curve of teeth on red apple skin, as if Claude was surprised and grateful for the ease of it all.

It did stay "until the next town," even after they got to Hilton, and Herlie, and Mars, and by the time they reached Cross, Dias had gotten used to the ebb and flow of conversation, and the strange calm to be found therein. It was odd to have company on the road, even odder than it had been travelling with the entire mismatched bunch, because it made him wonder when he'd last done anything but put up with it, when he'd last spoken simply because he felt like it, and so it didn't seem all that odd to pause when they arrived at Cross, and mutter something about bounties and extra hands.

A curse draws him from his thoughts and back to the present, Claude fighting with the lacings of his shirt. He looks up, realizing that he's being watched, and grins sheepishly, two spots of color in his cheeks.

"I'll have to introduce this planet to zippers."

And yet, his old clothes are lying folded on the bed, the strangely shaped shoes sitting on top of it, a stack of pecularities in a quaint little hotel room. The only thing that's not there are the devices Claude has brought with him, one of them broken, the other useless. Dias is pretty sure he knows where to find them, one tucked into the belt at the small of Claude's back, the other stashed in the pouch at his waist, and Dias thinks maybe the reason he didn't ask doesn't have anything to do with a lack of answers or his own inexplicable urges, and everything to do with these objects, and how he still has Cecille's ribbon, rolled up somewhere in the depths of his traveling bag.

Claude manages to pull the strings closed unevenly, the knots dangling, and in that moment, he seems very much like the actors Dias has seen getting ready for performances at fairs, lacing each other into ornate costumes one or two sizes too big.

Somewhere along the way, the sun has moved from one window to the other, which means that it is now too late to set out, and also that Claude is standing directly in a patch of light, squinting and unable to see the thing that's tugging at Dias' mouth, gentler than usual.

"This'll probably take me some time to get used to."

Dias thinks of winding roads and comfortable silences, and suspects that it might.


End file.
